As a person living in a world, the fundamental logic of my life is one by which I, in effect, 'stand on' (or 'within') who I am as a person and metaphorically 'point' my thoughts, senses, feelings and so on, at various real and imagined objects of attention within myself and the world.

The 'who I am' in this description is a subject; that is, a sentient being who is aware of experiencing pleasures, pains, thoughts, feelings, memories, dreams, desires and sensory inputs. Subjects do not simply 'sense', 'desire' or 'think'; we always sense, desire or think 'about' some object of sensing, desire or thought. If you perceive or imagine an event, for example, then that real or imagined event is the object of your perception or thought - what your perceiving or imagination metaphorically points at ('intends' in philosophical parlance). Similarly, if you desire chocolate then you are the subject of the desire while chocolate is the object of your desire even if there is no actual chocolate within your perceptual domain and it is not any particular piece of chocolate that you desire.

It can be seen from this description that by 'object' I mean a real or intended 'object of attention' rather than some materially existent thing. An object, in this sense, is any real or imagined state of affairs, thing, thought, relationship, event or feeling, that can be perceived, pictured, believed, experienced, remembered, dreamt or talked about by a subject. Objects may, but need not, be made of matter and/or energy. They may, but need not, exist in space and time (all things are objects, but not all objects are things). All that is required for any object to be an object is that a subject be able to direct her or his attention, thought, imagination or feelings, towards it rather than something else. An object, in other words, is any focus of attention or intention that a subject can differentiate from another focus of attention or intention. And this matters because:
        1. It is from differences that subjects construct worlds.¹  I was, for instance, able to recognise the differences between grass and gravel long before I had any idea about what makes them different. And it is out of such differences - rather than any knowledge of internal or genetic structures - that I still construct the world in which I am a person.
        2.  The difference between subject and object is (a) the foundational difference of every subject's world, (b) the first difference that we learn, and (c) the prototype or 'seed' of the 'stand on and point away to' logic by which we engage with and try to understand both the world and our place in it.

What makes differences different is their form - the particular structure or integrity which each object manifests. The chemical composition of H₂O, for example, does not differ from one snowflake to another, but each snowflake clearly differs in (a) the particular way it integrates frozen water into a flake form and (b) the flake's location within the larger integrity of space and time. Indeed, it seems likely that every thing in the cosmos is finally made of the same stuff merely integrated in different ways ² - so integrity matters.

Integrity is the structure, form, logic or arrangement of content that makes an object (a) different from other objects and (b) what it is rather than something else. Everything that is anything has and is an integrity. Every fact, thing, person, language, idea, artifact, body of knowledge, society and value is nourished by and dependent on integrity. Every imaginable object - every actual and possible state of affairs, every thing, person, language, idea, body of knowledge, artifact, society and value - is realised [made real in its world] and realisable only through integrity. And the only reason that we can differentiate various objects in our dreams and imaginings is because even unreal objects - objects that exist only in the imaginings and/or narratives of subjects - have their own, and distinct, integrity.

In short, without integrity [form] there would be no differences, no worlds, no facts or values, no knowledge, no reasoning, no perceivers and nothing to perceive.³

Local differences in integrity [form] are the basis of sameness within larger integrities. What makes one 2 numerically the same as a different 2, for example, is the way that both are numerically different from 3 or 4 within the larger integrity of mathematics. Similarly, what makes humans and dolphins exemplars of the same class of animal [mammalia] are the ways that they are, together, different from fish, birds and other kinds within the larger integrity ['kingdom'] of animalia.
        Noticing this relates [integrates] different objects of comparison within a larger integrity, using the 'stand on and point away to' logic of all language, thinking, feeling, meaning, belief and evaluation.

By 'larger integrity' I specifically mean any linking [relating] of otherwise different integrities into a 'sameness'. If I look at a tree, for example, all that I actually see is a chaos of different coloured shapes (which, incidently, I wouldn't know were different if I didn't have the cultural rules of 'different from' and 'same as'). But what I  perceive is a larger integrity of these shapes, shades and colours, integrated into distinct percepts by a culture-informed sensory process (i.e., perception - which just is the creating of percepts out of differences). If I subsequently describe the tree to a friend then what that friend hears is just a number of different sounds. It is only the sequencing of those sounds into a larger integrity, given distinct form by the rules of language, that creates the narrative from which a meaningful description emerges.
        It is from the formation of larger integrities that the complexity of worlds (themselves larger integrities) arise. In the natural world, for example, superstrings form particles which form atoms which form molecules - all of which are larger integrities of component integrities. Relationships within and between objects give rise to larger integrities of space and time. And within these integrities, certain molecules form the larger integrities of cells and chemicals which constitute leaves, branches, sap and so on which, in turn, form larger integrities [trees] within still larger integrities of eco-systems, the world, the solar system and so on.

If my understanding is correct then there are just six main kinds [samenesses] of larger integrity.

1. Natural integrates such as plants, planets, animals, eco systems, space, gravity, galaxies or mountains (i.e., what we call 'things').
2. Natural processes such as biological life, organic functions, climates, causal connections and entropy.
3. Cultural objects such as number, value, dreamed or imagined objects and events, promises, commands, hopes, fictional characters and worlds, gods and angels.
4. Cultural processes such as language and mathematics, reasoning or ethics [values and rules].
5. Natural-cultural integrates such as human persons - an integrity of nature (the biological 'human' part) and culture (the rule-using 'person' part) -, towns, feelings, knowledge of the natural world, our measurement of time and space, or the 'laws' of gravity or cause and effect.⁴
6. Natural-cultural processes such as gardening, human civilisation, war, economics, manufacture or philosophy.

1. All processes - natural, cultural and natural-cultural - are larger integrities.
2. Natural integrates and processes have and are their own integrity independent of human input. But all other larger integrities need the input of persons to exist as what they are in their various real or imagined worlds.
3. All cultural processes have a story-like larger integrity [form] through being rule-governed.
4. Larger integrities give us what we commonly think of as the facts of a world.

During our waking lives, persons are constantly engaged in creating [synthesising] and/or evaluating [analysing] larger integrities. If I plan or plant a garden, for example, if I think, communicate, enter into an agreement or make something, then I create a larger integrity by bringing different objects of attention into structured relationships - I give them a particular logical form. If I want to understand part of a world then I use my own, already existing, larger integrity of nature and culture to trace and evaluate the relationships connecting various objects of attention within one or more larger integrities.

In both creating and analysing larger integrities, the tool we use is ethics - by which I mean not just moral or other codes of conduct but any rule-using 'recipe' for outputting value from a process.
 

Traditionally the notion of ethics has been limited to the use of values and rules for moral or political purposes. This reflects and reinforces the traditional dichotomy by which the use of values and rules in morality is treated as special and problematic, while other uses of exactly the same logic (e.g., for language, reasoning and belief-formation) are treated as somehow immune to the charges raised against morality as a special case. This splitting of the same logic into two sets, that are treated differently, is arbitrary, unjustified and, more importantly, misleading. Morality is is just one of the many uses of ethical logic. And, in all significant respects, the logic of values and rules in morality is no different from the same logic used in the same way in science, conversation or gardening. As processes, these are all equally ethical, and it is the sameness of process which I want to highlight by (a) giving them the same name [ethics] and (b) using the name hitherto confined to moral or political codes of conduct.

Just as belief-formation and morality are merely different uses of the same logic rather than completely different games, so too are both the creating and understanding larger integrities also different uses of the same logic as governs morality or politics.
        If I want to grow vegetables, for instance, then I create a larger integrity of seeds, soil, moisture, sunlight and work.
        If I want to understand how vegetables grow then I try to (a) trace [map out] the larger integrity of seeds, soil, moisture, sunlight and work and (b) evaluate how valuable each fact-in-relationship is for the integrity (i.e., how much does water matter? is sunlight significant? and so on).⁵
    Both of these processes are ethical (i.e., governed by rules derived from and aimed at values). In both cases the motive is the hoped-for realisation of valued states of affairs. Both vegetables and understanding are valuable to me; the first process hopefully outputs more vegetables than I started with [input] while the second hopefully outputs more understanding than I started with. The logic - which is one of working with structured relationships within a larger integrity - is the same in both cases. All that differs is the output (vegetables, understanding) and the medium used to realise the output (soil, words).

Ethics, understood in this wide sense, are what enables humans to participate in a person-appropriate form of life. And everything we that has a voluntary content also has an ethical content which relies utterly on integrity to produce value. Even to object that what I have just said isn't true is an ethical process depending on the integrity of language and reason.

All cultural and natural-cultural processes (i.e., all and any deliberate uses or non-uses of power by persons) are aimed at realising valued states of affairs in the world. All such processes are therefore ethical; all are motivated by an aimed-at value, all are rule-governed in pursuit of that value. And, in all cases, both the larger integrity to be processed and the process used is determined by whatever value it is hoped to realise.
        In the process of growing vegetables, for instance (a matter of creating a larger integrity in the form of a garden) the sought-after value [the pleasure and survival value of growing and harvesting a food crop] acts as a criterion for what I select as inputs [seeds, soil, moisture, etc] and for the explicit or implicit rules I follow by planting the selected seeds at a certain time of year and so on. The larger integrity that I create, in this instance, links the inputs with an output. The output is a valued state of affairs - in this case, the pleasures and benefits I gain from the process of gardening and/or its end product.⁶  The rules I follow integrate [give structure or form to] the whole process, and it is by following implicit or explicit rules that I create an integrity of relationships from which the valued state of affairs emerges. If the rules and input are appropriate to the value I seek then, allowing for contingency, the aimed-at values [pleasure, survival] will be realised by my uses of power.
        Similarly, if I want to understand why some crops grow better than others (a matter of tracing and evaluating connections within a larger integrity) then the sought-after value [understanding] inputs criteria for what I study (the context and behaviour of plants and gardens over time) and how I study (the rules that I follow in sorting data about vegetables and their context). The integrity I trace and evaluate, in this case, is the same as that which I create in growing vegetables. But the integrity I  create is a narrative linking propositions into a rule-governed [structured] form which outputs a different value (information). And, once again, if the process I use (reasoning) is appropriate to the value being sought, and if I can and do follow the rules of reasoning, then the valued state of affairs that I output will be an increase in the information I seek. If the process is not appropriate, and/or is not followed correctly, then the output will either be ignorance (no increase in value) or misinformation (a disvalue).

Larger integrities often (perhaps always) embody or express, what could be called 'seed integrities'. These 'seeds' motivate, initiate and inform [give form to] the integrity and to whatever process realises it. In the case of crystals, plants and animals this is literally the case. The defining integrity of a tree, for example (the 'template' for the arrangement of parts which makes it the tree it is rather than something else), was contained within the seed from which it began. Much the same goes for atoms, narratives, houses, weather systems or human communities. An integrity of charge-balanced nucleus and shell or shells informs atoms of every weight and complexity. An idea, plan or hoped-for value similarly 'seeds' [begins, motivates and informs] processes such as gardening, argument, war or medicine.
        Understanding a larger integrity is often a matter not just of trying to trace its complexity but of spelling out its seed integrity - its informing structure or logic - as the output value [meaning] of a narrative; we consider ourselves to have really understood a larger integrity only once we have worked out and/or 'mapped' the basic integrity or logic that it embodies.
        Creating larger integrities, of any kind, is a matter of planting and cultivating seed integrities in the form of an ethic; we 'plant' [input] the ethic [a form-creating integrity of rules and values] in the hope of 'harvesting' [outputting] a valued state of affairs - we may not think about what we're planting, but we always do 'plant' these logical seeds, we always plant them for their value, and they always bear some kind of fruit. The 'seed integrity' may be in the form of a narrative, a plan, an idea, or even just a vague intention or impulse, but, regardless of what form it takes, it embodies a logical integrity which will inform whatever process it initiates.

Values. As already noted above, all ethical [cultural and natural-cultural] processes are aimed at realising a valued state of affairs - food, pleasure, power, understanding, personal self-importance (probably the most powerful motive in human ethics), virtue, health, truth, beauty, ugliness, wealth, revenge, and so on. All such processes are governed by rules derived from the supposed value of that state of affairs, and they all do realise differences in value of some kind.⁷

Values are language-derived ways of saying how much or how little a state of affairs matters to the definition, coherence and wellbeing of a larger integrity. A standard such as 'good', for example, is a way of saying that enough of a difference has been made to begin counting as adequate for a purpose.
 

As with all measures, what values 'point at' is not an essence or thing but a difference. You could think here, for example, of a measure such as length. I cannot show you the longness in a length of string any more than I can show you the goodness in a good act. But I can show you the differences between shorter and longer pieces of string. However, to describe or quantify the differences in length, I need a language of measure. The units in this language of measure will be entirely arbitrary and conventional - there are no centimetres or inches in string - but the differences they quantify are still real despite the arbitrariness of the language.

To count a use or non-use of power as right [valuable] is to evaluate it as adding to and/or nourishing an integrity. Good manners, for instance, are those that enhance the integrity of social relationships; minding our own business is called 'good' to the extent that it limits destructive interference in the affairs of others.

To say that we ought to do good is to derive a rule [an 'ought'] from the value of the good in question to an integrity or integrities.⁸  Because value emerges from integrity, to call a use or non-use of power 'wrong' [not valuable] logically asserts that it detracts from and/or violates the integrity. Using the wrong word or construction in a sentence, for instance, erodes the clarity of meaning, on which the value of a sentence relies, precisely by violating the integrity of the sentence from which its meaning emerges.

All valued objects are valuable to or for some integrity (our various scales of value say how much or little a fact matters to the integrity or integrities it affects). This entails that:

1. The word 'value' always implicates some state of affairs; some fact, property or relationship which the scale of value assesses or evaluates (literally 'e-value-ates'). To say that "All cultural and natural-cultural processes aim at value", for instance, really means that such processes aim at the realisation of some state of affairs which is aimed at because of the value it does or is believed to embody.
2. No property, difference or other fact is or can be simply valuable 'for its own sake'; it is always valuable for the 'sake' of something else (i.e., the 'object' of the value). To say that pleasure is intrinsically good, for example, simply asserts that pleasure is directly valuable to or for whatever integrity or integrities is/are served by it and/or would be harmed by its contrary. The word 'intrinsically' does not somehow detatch pleasure from whatever integrities enjoy it; on the contrary, it relates the value of pleasure more closely to the integrity than would an instrumental value such as a state of affairs that produces pleasure. Indeed, if pleasure is not valuable to some integrity then it has no value at all.

As the outputs of cultural and natural-cultural processes, values (i.e., valuable facts) emerge as properties of larger integrities - and that is the only way that they do emerge). It is these valued outputs which are aimed-at and motivate the processes in the first place. So if you go to work of a morning, for instance, then the fact that you have work to do, and that the work in hand involves certain activities at a place, time and so on, merely defines an option you have for spending the morning. The fact that you believe that the work needs doing, or that doing it involves meeting certain obligations, affects your income, satisfies or frustrates your wants, needs or interests, and so on, is just a context in which your choices are made. You do not have to go to work and, if you do go, you choose to go for the values - the pleasure, power, security and/or profit - that the work aims at. Moreover, the outcomes of going or not going to work will all be more or less valuable. If you have chosen well, and if going to work does realise the values you aim for, then going to work will, in fact, be more valuable to you than would the alternatives.

As inputs to cultural and natural-cultural processes, the hoped-for output values provide criteria for selecting (a) the process, (b) its content, and (c) the rules which will govern it. The aimed-at value of having vegetables to eat, for example, inputs criteria for selecting (a*) a particular values-realising process [gardening, farming, shopping or theft], (b*) material inputs for the process and (c*) rules by which selected inputs will be processed. So, as an input value, the hoped-for output value acts as a kind of seed which motivates and gives form to the larger integrity from which I hope that increased value will emerge.

Rules. A rule is a behaviour-guiding 'ought' [a sign or 'pointer' indicating a path or process for a use of power] which persons can obey [follow] but need not. Rules express and realise values. To say that you ought to exercise, for example, is just another way of saying that exercise is valuable. If exercise is valuable then doing what you ought to do will realise that value.

Rules matter because it is they (and only they) which institute and maintain the values-realising integrity between inputs and outputs in cultural and natural-cultural processes. Rules integrate processes which input form to differences and so create larger integrities according to an ethic [recipe, image, plan or narrative plot]. This ethic is intended to realise an increase in valued properties as the output of a process. So say, for example, that I narrate a politics by which I count cruelty as valuable because it makes me feel superior to my victims.⁹  To say that cruelty is valuable is just another way of saying that I ought to be cruel - the rule expresses the value - so the mere belief that cruelty is valuable entails that I should use various kinds of power in some ways and not in others. This rule, together with its originating value, constitutes an ethic - a kind of 'recipe' or a plan for the realisation of a value - using power as an ingredient. And, as with recipes in baking, the ethic specifies ingredients [inputs, contents] and a method [rules to be followed]. The content, in this example, is various uses and non-uses of power. The rules are derived from and aimed at the value it is hoped to realise. Following the rules gives form [integrity] to the content. If I am able to follow the recipe then I realise [make real] a valued state of affairs by using power to make a difference to myself and the world; the power-use becomes the input value's vehicle into the world where it can be realised.
 

The actual output values of cultural and natural-cultural processes are partly a function of whatever input values are actually conserved [preserved and transmitted] by the rules followed, and partly a function of contingency [the various accidents, imperfections and unwanted inputs that interfere with all processes]. In a reasonable process (i.e., one which is properly governed by appropriate rules) the output should, in good part at least, realise the aimed-at values which motivated the process in the first place. Otherwise the values realised may differ significantly from those hoped for. Of course, we seldom know in advance what the final output of an integrity-creating process will be. This is not entirely due to contingency but also to our finitude (under which head I include the limits of our power, the limits of our knowledge of all the relevant facts and appropriate rules, and the pernicious effects of our addiction to violence on the integrities from which values emerge). Nevertheless, and allowing for contingency, if the appropriate rules are known and followed then a garden aimed at vegetables will output vegetables, a study aimed at understanding will output understanding, a recipe for violence will realise violence, and so on.

As I have said, above, every process is a larger integrity. And a reasonable process, just by being one which is properly governed by appropriate rules, will be a well-realised larger integrity (i.e., whole [inviolate] and values-realising). For a reasonable process to be a well-realised larger integrity:

1. the selected inputs [contents or 'ingredients'] must be appropriate for the desired output,
2. the inputs must be accounted for [conserved] throughout the process, and
3. the values-realising structure [integrity or 'method'] must be conserved [preserved and transmitted] by appropriate rules.

In natural processes, the transfer of energy throughout a larger integrity gives us what we know as cause and effect. And, to the extent that human persons are human [natural], our acts are determined by natural causes. But, to the extent that we are persons [cultural] we act for a reason. Values are reasons for acting or not acting in a certain way. So rules, which express values, are the cultural equivalent of natural causes. They differ from natural causation mainly through being our invention and dependent on our cooperation to have any force.
        There is no intention driving natural cause and effect, no mind or narrative at work, but rules are intentional; they are always a part of ethical processes aimed at realising value. And, although rules are not natural, rule-users [persons] use rules to realise value by organising differences into meaningful forms [larger integrities] in a way that parallels those by which various natural [cause and effect] processes unintentionally realise integrities by formatting bits into atoms, atoms into molecules, molecules into crystal, biological, planetary and stellar forms, and so on.

Form [integrity] is related to value in that:

1. Form creates the differences, such as different uses of different powers, which are the content of values-realising processes. You do not, for example, make a garden, build a shelter or sing a song until you make a difference by using power [transferring energy] in a certain way; you don't just flap your arms or run on the spot but input a form of power appropriate to the process [the larger integrity] from which you intend value to emerge - you plant seeds or seedlings, arrange timber or make sounds in a particular sequence.
2. Values (and facts) emerge (only) from integrities, and it is only by formatting [inputting form to] differences that persons deliberately create the larger integrities which realise value. Differences, for example, are not informative (do not become facts) unless/until we read them for meaning; and we cannot do that until they are given readable form [integrity] by our cultural inputs (i.e., by rules). And even if you don't cultivate a garden, there is no food without the integrity of plants (the valuable fact, food, emerges from the integrity of plants) and no food eaten without the ethics whereby we locate, harvest and consume the edible output of plants.

You can get an idea of how rules work in realising valuable states of affairs by comparing an ethical process to a kind of journey from one place to another. Say, for example, that you want to get from where you are now (point A) to a particular shop (point B). The larger integrity in this example is the journey from A to B, and the output value of this integrity is that of safely and reliably getting to your desired destination. At an intersection you meet someone and ask directions; she points to a Shopping Centre down the road and tells me to take the first raod on the left past the Centre. You follow her directions and, sure enough, arrive where you want to be. Pointing is a behaviour-guiding 'ought' [a rule]; it says that if you want to realise the value of arriving at a desired destination then you ought to use your power in a certain way. It is the conservation of this 'pointed at' value (the value of arriving at your intended destination) that makes the rule appropriate. If the rule is appropriate, and if you follow it correctly, then you will realise an integrity between where you intend to go [your intended or 'pointed at' input value] and where you get [the realised output value]. If you don't follow the rule, or if the rule is inappropriate then the value you seek will be lost or eroded; you may get confused and/or end up in the wrong place.
        By analogy, the desired 'destination' of a ethic is the reliable realisation of a valued fact, difference, property, perception, understanding, justified belief or communication. So say, for instance, that you have had an experience of which you want to make sense; your 'point B' in this case is understanding. In the process of sorting the relevant information, putting it in order (realising an integrity) and deriving an understanding from it [arriving at B], you follow rules of language, reasoning, mathematics and so on, that are internalised, metaphorical, 'pointers'. If these rules are appropriate, and if you follow them, then the value you seek is more likely to be realised as a reliable outcome than would otherwise be the case. If one or more of the rules is not appropriate, if you do not follow all the rules properly and/or if some event beyond your control interferes with the process, then the integrity of your evaluation is violated and the value you seek will almost certainly either not be found or will be unreliable.¹⁰

There are no rules [no 'oughts'] in nature - nature just 'is' - but culture is made of rules. Rules govern all and only all cultural and natural-cultural processes and, within such processes, they are inescapable. No person can realise any value or disvalue, live the life of a person, think, believe, or even opt-out of living the life of a person, without following the rules that enable and structure thought, perception, belief, language, and so on (even killing yourself is a rule-governed activity).
        Cultural [person-involving, ethical] processes differ from natural [non-ethical] processes in that persons (collectively) invent, narrate and (individually) choose among, the values and rules which inform their behaviours. An ant building a nest, for example, follows a process and realises a value just as much as does a human building a house. But the ant has no narratives; it does not know that it is realising a value and does not use rules as a reason for following one process rather than others - the building process is natural and cause-governed rather than cultural and rule-governed. For persons, however, house building is a rule-governed, natural-cultural, process. Indeed, hardly anything that human persons do is simply or entirely natural (even breathing can be altered by cultural inputs such as holding your breath during part of a scary movie or breathing in a certain way as part of a meditative technique).
        Because rules are not naturally determined, no one has to follow a rule should she or he choose not to. But it is only by following process-appropriate rules that persons reliably realise the pointed-at ['destination'] values that motivate our cultural and natural-cultural processes. The rules governing mathematics, for example, are wholly human conventions; they are not found in nature and, unlike natural laws, no one 'has' to obey them. If we do not obey them then we cannot realise the value of being able to make reliable mathematical calculations, but whether we realise that value or not is entirely each individual's personal choice.

Appropriate Rules. Because rules emerge from, serve and are justified by values, they are only ever true or false conditionally [according to an "If...then..." logic]. It is, for example, true that if you want to become good at carpentry then you should/ought to practice it; it is false that if you want to become good at carpentry then you ought to attand cookery classes. This "If...then..." justification ties the rule to [integrates it with] the value it serves ("If the value then the rule"). If it is true that a certain rule serves the value it is thought to serve then I call it 'appropriate'.
        Appropriate rules create and preserve the coherence [the values-realising integrity] of an ethical [cultural or natural-cultural] process, on which the reliability of the process's outcome depends. The point of using appropriate rules is to increase the reliability of the process. In baking bread, for example, following appropriate rules [the recipe] realises the integrity of the bread-making process by which flour, yeast and water are reformed and integrated into a valuable larger integrity. Analogously, the rules of reasoning realise the values-realising integrity of the process by which facts [meaningful differences] are integrated in a larger integrity (a narrative) from which understanding (a value) emerges.
        The integrity in question is determined by the actual input values that motivate the processing of input facts into a larger integrity (which may or may not be the purported or intended values); how well it is realised or not is primarily determined by the actual rules followed in the process. In the case of understanding, for example, I input an assumption of value - namely that facts are meaningful ['point to' relationships within a larger integrity] in order to output a larger integrity of the same value (i.e., meaning, value in = value out). Selected facts and differences are the content ['ingredients'] of the larger integrity from which I hope understanding will emerge, and it is rules [the 'method' part of the 'recipe'] which realise the values-realising integrity [form] which these ingredients are to take by means of the reasoning process.

Rules and the Conservation of Integrity. For a deliberate process to reliably realise a hoped-for value:

1. The actual input value - the value that determines the inputs and rules - must be the hoped-for one (there is no point in pursuing political values if you want potatoes or moral virtues),
2. Both the seed integrity and process [ethic] must be appropriate to the hoped-for output value (there is no point in planting and cultivating peas if you want potatoes or a novel),
3. The material inputs must be properly selected and weighted for importance according to the avowed output/input value (too much fresh water will harm a potato crop as much as will too little - and salt water just won't do at all),
4. The values-realising integrity of the process must be conserved by appropriate rules (following the rules of house-building won't grow either peas or potatoes) and
5. Nothing out of your control must violate the process (even the most conscientious gardener can be denied a hoped-for output by unseasonable weather, vandals or ordinary bureaucratic interference).

The conservation of form works out somewhat differently to that of content. If, for example, I plant bean seeds properly and at the appropriate time of year then, in due course, I can reasonably expect to harvest a great many more beans than I input. This increase in valued integrities does not violate the principle of conservation - the output still exactly conserves all the input contents - it's just that not all the contents are output in the same form as they were input because the seed integrity reforms [re-integrates] some of them into a new integrity. This new integrity (a bean plant) is an 'integrity-producing machine' which, all things being equal, will output some of its inputs 'after the image' of the seed integrity which initiated and informed it.¹¹
        In natural processes, transfers of energy can be traced as cause and effect; in non-natural processes, transfers of energy and value are governed by rules. And the values-realising format [integrity] of the process - the equivalent of the bean plant which is defined by the input [seed] value and which reforms the input content after the image of the seed integrity - is conserved by appropriate rules. So what the rules of bread-making most importantly conserve, for instance, is the integrity of the process by which flour, yeast and water are reformed and integrated into a valuable larger integrity. Similarly, if I want to understand something then the rules of reasoning most importantly conserve the values-realising integrity of the understanding process.
        This values-realisingintegrity is determined by (a) the actual input values that motivate the processing of input facts into a larger integrity (which may or may not be the purported or intended values), and (b) the actual rules followed in the process. In this case, for example, I input an assumption of value - namely that facts are meaningful ['point to' relationships within a larger integrity] in order to output more of the same value (i.e., understanding, once again, values in = values out). Selected facts and differences are the content ['ingredients'] of the larger integrity from which I hope understanding will emerge, and it is rules [the 'recipe'] which realise the values-realising integrity [form] which these ingredients are to take by means of the reasoning process.
        In appropriately rule-governed cultural and natural-cultural processes, the form [quality] of the content will change in conformity with the input values - gaining more of a desired value in much the same way that some of the input content of a garden [soil, water, sunshine] takes on the valuable integrity of the seeds planted in the garden. Thus, in working out the equation k=160/2×32², for example, the output (81920) conserves the input quantities (160/2 and 32²), but in a more useful [valuable] form.

A rule can be relied on as appropriate just so long as, for the integrity in which it participates, it (a) conserves the form and (b) accounts for the content of that integrity for that integrity. In saying this, however, three points must be stressed.

1. Following appropriate rules increases only the reliability of our intended outcomes; it does not guarantee the outcomes because contingency, entropy and violence can all and always interfere with even the most carefully regulated processes.
2. Following inappropriate rules does not output nothing; it outputs integrity-violating values such as nonsense, falsehoods, oppression, truncated personhood and violence. Thus, to follow the rules of knowledge is to realise justified beliefs, with all the value that entails; to violate the rules of knowledge (which means following rules of irrationality) is to realise unjustified beliefs, with all the disvalue that entails. Only to do neither would make no difference one way or another.
3. The law of conservation tells us only that if we want to generate reliable outputs for a cultural or natural-cultural process then the rules we follow - and it is certain that we will follow some rules - must conserve both the input value and the values-realising integrity [form] of the process throughout the process. The law does not say either that any of us have to want reliable outcomes or that the conservation of content and/or form cannot be violated in fact (the 'Violence is natural therefore violence should be accepted' example proves that it can). It only says that if the law is violated then the process will lack the coherence [integrity] on which the reliability of its output values depend.

1. values entail rules(if eating wholesome foods is valuable, for instance, then the value of eating wholesome foods entails that we should [ought to] eat wholesome foods),
2. rules conserve the integrity from which values emerge (respecting the rule 'humans ought to eat wholesome foods' conserves the integrity from which emerges value for the human who follows the rule), and
3. we ought to follow rules only if doing so is valuable in some way (there is no 'ought' about eating wholesome foods unless there is some value - pleasure, health, survival - to be realised by doing so).

All ethics integrate a value-set with a rule-set. The value-set defines (a) what outputs (states of affairs, properties, virtues, etc) are held to be valuable, (b) what cultural or natural-cultural process will realise the valued outputs, (c) what inputs are to be included in the values-realising process, and (d) what rules will govern the processing of those inputs. The rule-set is the code of behaviours followed during the process in the belief that it is an appropriate means of inputting and realising the value-set.

All ethics work with and rely on integrity. Some (e.g., belief formation) trace and evaluate integrities, others (e.g., gardening or morality) create integrities. But they are all variants of the same basic logic and differ from each other only in (1) the particular integrity they process, (2) the particular value each aims to output, (3) the rule-set each employs (which is, in turn, itself a function of the values each seeks to realise), and (4) the different vocabularies used to talk about length, beauty, goodness, quantity, location and so on. The difference between science and morality, for instance, is not that one is all about facts whereas the other is all about values. Both are equally ethics that use rules derived from values to evaluate differences. Not only morality and science but every cultural or natural-cultural process institutes a 'values in, values out' ethic, the values-realising integrity of which is conserved by rules (values generate rules generate value). Rules [the whole 'ought/should' part of our thinking] not only give us our morality, science and religion, they even give us the very facts which we use science and morality to evaluate.¹²  And rules (including the rules which give us science) are a function of values - a human invention - rather than facts that any science or religion can discover about the universe.
        Thus it is that two worlds meet in the natural-cultural world of human persons: the natural world (realised by cause and effect) and the cultural world (realised by rules). Both causation and rules govern the transfer of energy - they just do so in different ways - and it is when they meet [integrate] that we have meaning.
 

Steven Foulds, July 2006

Feedback and questions are welcome

Feedback

1. By 'worlds' I mean domains about which we have beliefs; this world, the world around us, is a world, but so is the world of Shakespeare (see the world). That we create worlds from differences rather than things is argued in Out of the Caves Chapter 7 (cf. Chapter 5.3) available in paperback from Hinau Press Ltd.

2. Even the vastest and most complicated structures, for example, break down into molecules made up from a limited range of elemental atoms. Atoms integrate even fewer common components - protons, neutrons, electrons, etc - into variations of the same basic 'core and shell' form. And atomic components, in turn, integrate just a few variations of a basic 'wriggly stuff' (popularly known as 'superstrings') that is now thought to be one of the forms that energy takes (i.e., matter and energy turn out to be the same stuff in the end - even if e=mc² isn't actually correct). So everything turns out to be no more than different arrangements - different integrations - of a common content. It is only the logic - the form or structure of the various integrities - that really differs. And it is by recognising these differences of form that I am able to differentiate gold from gravel even if I do not know what either really 'is' in itself - a fact proved by the ease with which folk have been able to differentiate gold from gravel during all the millennia before they had any idea at all that anything even had an atomic structure.

3. It is the final disintegration of integrity that is predicted in the so-called 'heat death' of the universe.

4. Causation, for example, is a natural process whereby energy flows from one integrate to another. But our understanding of cause and effect integrates cultural [rule-governed] perceptions and concepts with our natural sensory apparatus and what is there in nature. Reasoning is the cultural analogue of cause and effect in which meaning (a value) flows from one proposition to another.

5. The value in this case is a measure of how closely integrated a particular fact is with the larger integrity of the object under consideration. If water is valuable to a plant, for example, then the integration of water with the plant is closely connected to the overall integrity of the plant as a whole.

6. And note that the output of a cultural or natural-cultural process is never just a value - as if values could just somehow 'hang there' - but always a valued state of affairs.

7. Although note here that the word 'value' is not necessarily a synonym of 'good'. What is valuable to a rapist or politician, for example, may not be at all good by any reasonable moral standard, but even the most normal politicians are seeking value of some kind - even if it is only their own self-aggrandisement.

8. The use of 'good' to express approval 'points' not at the object at all but at a property of the subject - it connotes the subject's satisfaction that enough of a difference has been made to begin counting as adequate for a purpose.

9. I choose this example to make the point that I am not equating 'value' with what most folk would call 'good' - obviously even that which most of us would call 'bad' is valued by some folk

10. Of course, if you were looking for a particular shop, and did not find it, then you would be unlikely to assume that where you were where you wanted to be. But an ever present danger of all intellectual journeys is that, if its rules are inappropriate, we can arrive at a wrong conclusion and nevertheless sincerely believe that it is reliable.

11. It is precisely this process, by which inputs are reformed by seeded processes into more valuable integrities, on which persons do and must rely to realise valued states of affairs in the world.

12. The fact that differences are different, for example, would not be evident to us if I our senses were not informed by previously existing cultural notions of 'same as' and 'different from'. Evaluating any object of thought as 'different from' or 'the same as' is a matter of establishing criteria of evaluation and following rules for applying the criteria. Establishing criteria is a matter of valuing one difference - shape or colour, for example - more than others - age, weight, smell, quantity or whatever. Eliminate this ethic - the application of criteria [values] and rules - and we would not even perceive differences let alone facts.